October 29, 2012

Giving and Leading: Native American Connections

President and CEO of Native American Connections Diana Yazzie-Devine talks about her nonprofit that provides behavioral health services, affordable housing and economic development opportunities to Native Americans in the Phoenix area and tribal communities.

Ted Simons: Tonight we focus on a valley nonprofit that's been helping Native Americans in the Phoenix area for 40 years. Native American Connections provides behavioral health, affordable housing and community development services to thousands of families and individuals each year. Here to tell us more about the organization is its president and CEO Diana Yazzie-Devine. It's good to have you here.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Glad to be here.

Ted Simons: Native American Connections. Give us a better definition.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: As you said, we were founded 40 years ago to serve the native population that was moving into the Phoenix area at that time. Unemployment rates were high in tribal communities. They didn't have access to higher education, so you saw this migration of native American people coming into Phoenix. When they got here they found that they were pretty socially isolated and culturally isolated, so Native American Connections was founded at that time to really support the behavioral health and housing needs of native people coming to the Phoenix area, disconnected from their families and culture.

Ted Simons: Has that goal changed over the years or is that target?

Diana Yazzie-Devine: It's almost exactly the same. We're a much larger organization. We have 18 service sites all throughout central Phoenix. We're still supporting native American people. Right now we serve all populations too. Affordable housing in the housing first model that mayor was talking about, serving the homeless population, supporting them when they have those needs that they have around substance abuse, mental health issues, domestic violence, so we still really do pretty much the same thing. We use a lot of traditional healing practices too.

Ted Simons: I was going to ask about that. The culturally appropriate method of these services. Talk to us about that.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: You might be surprised if you knew we are actually operating a sweat lodge healing ceremonies right in the heart of downtown Phoenix on 3rd avenue and Roosevelt. Two times a week we start the sweat lodge fire. In order to promote community wellness and healing the total mind-body spirit where a person really needs to be healthy in their body, healthy in their mind and healthy in their spirit. Those cultural ceremonies are still helping to do that right in the heart of Downtown Phoenix.

Ted Simons: It looks like it. Importance of honoring culture and the importance of that holistic approach, is that something that was there from the beginning or again something that developed?

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Well, it was supported by the founders, but it was important by everybody else who came after that knowing that those ceremonies have been anchoring and grounding native people for thousands of years. It is a best practice. We always talk about how do we treat people in the best practice method, whether its research based, whether it's successful. And those old practices have been around for a long time. They really help support native people in that holistic model of healing.

Ted Simons: Is there a way to quantify the result, to say look, I can show you X, Y, and Z maybe is working better than alternative methods?

Diana Yazzie-Devine: As people move through certain levels of care then they go into -- the mayor was talking about permanent housing. If we can connect somebody who is probably homeless on the street, you may have a woman who is using methamphetamine, she was pregnant, she was going to have a baby that would have been addicted to meth. Instead she came into care. We were able to wrap her with health care services, house her and then she went on to find permanent housing, we were able to provide job development services that help women reenter back into the community. This woman her children are now enrolled in school. She's in stable housing. She has a job. You know, she's a taxpayer. She's being supported in her cultural environment. So many times Native American people feel disconnected or lonely or isolated. Here they get to remain in that cultural community and feel that support here in Phoenix.

Ted Simons: Sounds like 18 service locations.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Yes.

Ted Simons: The idea of a one-stop service, the big kahuna, talk about that. That sounds like quite the deal you got going.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: In 2005 the Phoenix Indian center, native health, and now people of color network came together and said, our people are having a difficult time trying to find these services. They are not people with isolated problems, they are people when they come in for health care they need jobs. They also need housing. We said, why don't we come together and we found a building on central, 4520 North Central across from Central High School at the light-rail stop, and now we have seven nonprofits all operating out of that same site. So they can get job services, dental services, medical services, behavioral health. There's an alternative high school for Native American youth. It's a center where they come in, maybe looking for a single service, they get wrapped in a variety of services.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Well, I think we have a really good strategy. I think we have a very diverse strategy. You want your money to come from a variety of places. Some of our rents coming from -- income comes from rents that people pay in our affordable housing communities. Some of it comes from government grants. We're certainly supported by the foundations. There's a lot of foundations that are -- hate to mention one because there's many that support us. We have fee for service contracts with tribal communities, government contracts that are pretty wide portfolio of the way our money comes to us. Allows us to be a little bit more stable if something goes away.

Ted Simons: You described embracing the entrepreneurial spirit. Talk to us about that.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Sure. Well, I think Native American Connections itself; we are one of the larger nonprofit affordable housing developers. Divine Legacy on central next door to our community service center, Divine Legacy is the first affordable housing community to be the platinum certified. So we have the highest -- that's a Green standard of certification. So when we build our affordable housing communities we actually build from the low-income housing tax credit program. The State Department of housing is issued future tax corrodes from the federal government, and they are then allocated to nonprofits or other developers and we sell them to investors who need future tax credits, so we're actually building with private equity investment rather than using government funds or creating debt, you know, and that's how we create affordable housing to keep our rents low for families that want to live in a community where they can stabilize their family with low rents.

Ted Simons: That sounds like something that would have been a dream about 40 years ago. You have been with the organization 33 some odd years. You have to feel like you're making a difference; feel good about what's been going on with this organization.

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Our employees say -- our organization, some of our services are lifesaving services. We touch some of the communities’ most vulnerable people. Women that need to be in care when they are pregnant. Domestic violence, homeless youth. We have a homeless transitional program named home base for homeless youth. We're out on the streets outreaching them, bringing them in off the streets into care. A lot of those kids were the ones that transitioned out of foster care and found themselves homeless on the streets of Phoenix. So our employees, our board of directors, the community, I think we really make a difference in people's lives. We change lives.

Ted Simons: Where does Native American Connections go from here?

Diana Yazzie-Devine: Well, I think we're actually building another affordable housing community right downtown Phoenix. AT 2nd avenue and McKinley. We're interested in being part of the mayor's strategy about really making sure that the citizens of Phoenix have affordable housing that's on transportation corridors so you're linking people. We're really wanting to support Green building and Green strategies and getting people to and from work with without having to have a car. All those things are important to us. We're part of the United way and corporation for supportive housing on their housing first strategy, so we're opening our first housing first program.

Ted Simons: Good evening. Welcome to "Arizona Horizon." I'm Ted Simons. The city of Phoenix has a new strategy for helping the home. Starting next summer the city will prioritize existing resources to put chronically homeless families into permanent housing. The plan, the Phoenix homeless initiative, was approved by the city council last week. Here to talk about that and other news is mayor Greg Stanton. Good to have you. Nice to be mayor of Phoenix as opposed to anywhere on the east coast right now.

Greg Stanton: Thank you for mentioning that. It should be noted we're all thinking and praying for the people on the east coast. If it is a tough situation where they do need additional help, Phoenix police, Phoenix fire, emergency personnel stand ready to get out to the northeast as soon as possible to help the people there. Waiting to see if the president declares an emergency area. If they do the people of Phoenix want our professionals to provide the help they can. We have the best trained public safety folks in the entire country and we're there to help as needed.

Ted Simons: All right. Let's get to some local issues. The Phoenix homeless initiative what. Are we talking about here?

Greg Stanton: I believe that we can end homelessness. When I served on the council I was chair of the regional homeless committee called the Maricopa Continuum Care. I believe if we adopt smarter strategies we can end homelessness with this incredibly bad economy. We have seen a significant increase in the number of homeless and in particular families with children, single women with children, and veterans. So our focus area, we're going to change our policy so our focus is providing long term housing with supportive services so that we don't manage homelessness, we end homelessness for those families that can get into housing, provide help for what ails them if you will, so they can end that cycle and get back into a job and back with their families in stable housing.

Ted Simons: You call it smarter strategizing. Was the strategy heretofore not smart?

Greg Stanton: I would say we have learned over time and we should always be looking in the mirror and saying how can we improve things that we do? We have learned from experiences not only locally but learning from best practices around the country that if you provide a family with a temporary house, they might -- chances of them ending back in homelessness are higher. If you provide them more stable, permanent housing with supportive services meaning job counseling services, maybe substance abuse services if they have issues relative to substance abuse. Maybe it's mental health services. If you provide services, wrap it around the family, they're much more likely to end the cycle of homelessness and get out of it. That's what we want. We don't want to manage homelessness. We don't want to give someone a temporary home but have them much more likely to end up back on the streets. We want to get them into stable, permanent housing. This new strategy puts all of our resources into that goal. I think it's what people want us to be more efficient with all of our programs in city government and our human services programs including and especially our homeless services should be held to the same standard. Be smarter, more efficient about how we go about it.

Ted Simons: So we're looking at vouchers?

Greg Stanton: Not just section 8 housing, also again the supportive services that go along with it. So the whole point is give me a family is that homeless that is maybe staying at one of the shelters. We have great shelters in town. They provide homeless services for families with children. Get them out of that shelter setting into a more permanent setting knowing they will need support services to be able to stay out of that shelter situation. So again it's called housing first. It's based on best practices from around the country. We are now going to significantly increase the number of people out of shelters into permanent housing.

Ted Simons: Existing resources? Enough of those to handle a problem like this?

Greg Stanton: No. The current program, this initiative doesn't involve additional resources. It is better utilizing existing resources, but I believe the city of Phoenix is a city with a big heart. These incredibly difficult economic times -- things are getting better but too many folks are unemployed, under-employed, and as the budget improves you would expect the council will support me that human services supporting the people of the city is as important as any other public policy of our city.

Ted Simons: Another concern, public policy concern, is health care. Cities around the country and municipalities in general, they are looking at Medicaid and saying, we have to do something here. It sounds like you're thinking of doing something.

Greg Stanton: Health care is a tremendous issue. Our hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona we have some of the best in the country, people travel around the country and the world to receive health care in Phoenix. That's one of our competitive advantages. But too many hospitals have a significant amount of uncompensated care. They provide help for people but because people don't have insurance they have to provide that for free. It puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our hospitals shouldn't be in that position. The professionals there, doctors, nurses, physicians' assistants shouldn't be at risk of losing their job as a result. We want to provide health care for as many people as possible. So the city of Phoenix is looking at ways that we can provide additional health care services for our citizens and best protect those jobs. It's called the Phoenix access to care ordinance. We're going to likely vote it on early December. The chamber of commerce likes it. The healthcare world likes it. Our taxpayer dollar are going to Washington. If they don't come back to Arizona they are going to go someplace else. We want our fair share of those dollars, save jobs and provide health care.

Ted Simons: There's access. Does the legislature like it?

Greg Stanton: The shrug last year of course dealt with a lot of health care issues. They content come to consensus on doing an assessment themselves what. They did do is pass a law that allowed the cities to do this. We are the first city that's taken a look at this. I believe that the support is going to be there for this ordinance and we'll be the second city in the country to take the lead on this. My feeling is this as we're the largest city in the state of Arizona. We can't sit back and wait for others to do things for us. If people need health care we need to protect those health care jobs the city of Phoenix is going to lead. The access to care ordinance is good economic policy and good health care policy. It truly is a win-win for the people of the community.

Ted Simons: How will you pay for it?

Greg Stanton: There will be an assessment only on hospitals that would like to be assessed. It's only an assessment on the willing. They gate two for one federal match; if the federal dollars don't come here they are going to go someplace else. We're paying those dollars, so it's unfair to ask the people 6 Arizona to pay into this federal system but not get their fair share back. We want to be treated fairly. The people of the state deserved to be treated fairly. It's only an assessment on hospitals that want the assessment. They won't be able to legally pass it on to the end user. It's a legal mechanism that creates the uncompensated care pool if you will and again, it's going to do a lot of good for the people of our community.

Ted Simons: Time frame? What are we looking at here?

Greg Stanton: We're looking at early December, a vote of the city council. We need approval from the Medicaid system in Washington D.C. I have already traveled back to Washington to meet with them to make the case. The meeting went great. They are in the health care business and they like entities like the city of Phoenix that are willing to go the extra mile to support the people of the community, the hospitals of your community. They understand the dilemma. They understand this economy has created so many uninsured people and our job is to help the people of the city and help the jobs of the city. That's what this ordinance will allow us to do.

Greg Stanton: We have a bunch of historic preservation issues, not just the buildings in downtown Phoenix near the arena. Obviously you read about the frank Loy Wright house in Arcadia. I believe from the bottom of my heart how you protect your past says a lot about your history. We have some unique challenges in Arizona. We passed prop 207, the so-called private property rights act that has a great impact on our ability to do the right kind of historic preservation. I have called I'm going to see soon an organization put together to relook at our ordinance. Are the laws right so we can do right by our past? Do we have the appropriate resources that we do right by our past? I believe those cities that are best able to protect their history are the cities that are most attractive to entrepreneurs creating the jobs of the future. So historic preservation and economic development go hand in hand.

Ted Simons: What about the two hotels, though?

Greg Stanton: What happened is that the Suns own them. They were not designated historic. They did tear down one of them and a portion of the other one. If you were to see downtown it's hard to describe, but the Madison hotel, the red brick portion of it remains. Look. I'm forward looking. I'm a forward looking person. I want to see what policies we can pass at the city, what policies we can pass to best protect as much of our history as possible.

Ted Simons: But could that have been handled a little bit better? Could those buildings have stood and maybe been renovated, give the Suns their valley parking if need be, get something going on -- not obviously these weren't architectural digest kind of buildings but these are 100-year-old buildings.

Greg Stanton: Here's what I believe. I believe that historic preservation can lead to miracles. I was on city council and I absolutely supported the city acquiring the Phoenix Union High School buildings on Van Buren. To be honest we didn't know what we were going to do with them. Just a few months later something great happened. The U of A medical school wanted to move to Phoenix. We made the pitch and they accepted. The historic buildings turned into the medical school. I do believe that it is great economic policy to incorporate the old and the new even if you want to redevelop you should incorporate the new with the older buildings. This has been done all over the country. You can be very successful in that regard. I want to encourage that by developers all over the city.

Ted Simons: The Frank Lloyd Wright house, has that been handled as best it could have been handled? Private property rights folks are saying you trampled all those…this guy with this designation. You trampled over them. Others say how come this thing wasn't preserved or designated as historic a long time ago?

Greg Stanton: These are -- that's exactly the issues I deal with as mayor of this city. If they were the easy ones they wouldn't get to Mississippi desk. Here's the honest truth on that. The building was not designated historic previously as you know under prop 207 we can't just designate things historic Willie Nilly, if you will. We have to make sure everyone in the process gets treated 100% fair. If we do things that decrease the value we have to pay that value. So we have to be careful how we go about it. The good news in the frank Lloyd Wright case is buyers are interested in this building. I think the sellers are good people. I think they are trying to in good A.T.F. try to find -- in good faith try to find a buyer. I'm optimistic we will get that house in the hands of a buyer who wants it designated historic for generations to come and it will be an iconic building for many, many generations, something we can be very, very proud of. I'm an Optimist with good reason.

Ted Simons: What happens if they don't find a buyer?

Greg Stanton: Then the city of Phoenix will have to make a decision about whether it's designated historic without an immediate buyer. There are lots of buyers. So I don't want to predict the future. Who knows what's going to occur? I do believe that that building is worthy of historic status. It's an iconic building. It's one of less than 40 in the world that have the signature of frank Lloyd Wright right on the building. It would be a terrible shame if that building was demolished. As mayor I'm going to do everything in my power not to let that occur.